Erasmus helped popularize the phrase “Pandora’s box.”
The earliest Greek version of the myth uses a pithos, or large jar. In later Latin and European retellings, the vessel became associated with a box, and the altered image became the standard expression in English and many other languages.
Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch Renaissance humanist, included classical proverbs and stories in his Adagia. His treatment of the Pandora story is commonly linked with the spread of the box wording in European culture. This does not mean Erasmus invented Pandora or the entire myth; he helped transmit and reshape an already ancient story.
The modern idiom now means a source of many unforeseen problems released by one action. It is therefore both a mythological reference and a record of how translation, printing, and Renaissance scholarship changed classical imagery.